Drones in Houston help troops fight Iraq, Afghanistan wars

Fighting a real war in a virtual cockpit

Drones are the "largest growth industry in the military," says Col. Ken Wisian, commander of the Ellington unit.

Drones are the "largest growth industry in the military," says Col. Ken Wisian, commander of the Ellington unit.

Photo: Dave Rossman, Chronicle

Photo: Dave Rossman, Chronicle

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Drones are the "largest growth industry in the military," says Col. Ken Wisian, commander of the Ellington unit.

Drones are the "largest growth industry in the military," says Col. Ken Wisian, commander of the Ellington unit.

Photo: Dave Rossman, Chronicle

Drones in Houston help troops fight Iraq, Afghanistan wars

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As his wife got dressed on a recent weekday morning, Jon Stiles settled the couple’s 1-year-old daughter into a highchair with an Eggo waffle and soy sausage. Lately Stiles had been working a swing shift, so he had time to read his daughter a few Sesame Street books, walk June Bug, the family’s dachshund-beagle mix, and hit a cycling class at the gym before starting his 45-minute commute. “Then it’s kiss the baby, kiss the wife goodbye, pet the dog and out the door,” Stiles said. His pre-work ritual is pretty typical of any suburban Houston dad. His job is anything but. Inside a windowless room at Houston’s Ellington Airport, the 36-year-old major with the Texas Air National Guard will sit down at the controls of a Predator drone as it cruises over insurgent hideouts and convoy routes in Afghanistan or Iraq. Although it’s late afternoon in Houston, the sun is about to rise in the combat zone. Via satellite, Stiles will talk to ground troops on the front lines who depend on the high-resolution, real-time images collected by his Predator’s sensors. He will look for evidence of bombs planted in or alongside roadways, or suspicious people carrying weapons on rugged mountain trails. “You might be doing a convoy escort, guys moving 20 to 30 vehicles from point A to point B, and you’re just scanning ahead of them, trying to make sure no one is going to ambush them,” Stiles said. “It kinda gives ’em a warm, fuzzy feeling to know there’s somebody up there looking after them.”

Integral part of the war

This long-distance warfare might sound like science fiction, but for Stiles, it’s all too real. “Sometimes I’ll hear guys screaming and gunfire in the background,” he said. “Your heart’s racing, probably just like theirs, even though you’re not actually there.” Many Houstonians who drive past Ellington Airport on Old Galveston Road probably assume the Air Guard Station is closed, the victim of budget cuts and consolidation. In fact, Ellington’s Air Guard plays an even more integral part in the war effort now than it did two years ago, when the 147th Reconnaissance Wing lost its fleet of F-16s. A base realignment sent the wing’s 15 fighter jets to a boneyard in 2008. The F-16 mechanics, pilots and support staff were given a choice: They could retrain on Predators, or move on. Stiles, a fighter pilot with two Iraq tours under his belt, chose to stay. Now he and other members of the 147th are flying Predators in Afghanistan and Iraq, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. “From having nearly disappeared entirely — this base and this wing — we’re in a great position,” said the 147th’s commander, Col.

. “We’re in what is the largest growth industry in the military. We have a secure future. We’re doing leading-edge work. We’re in the fight, day-to-day.” The wing’s transition from F-16s to unmanned aircraft here in Houston reflects a larger trend that’s transforming the
Air Force
and Air Guard as the U.S. military comes to rely on drones for surveillance and targeting of enemy forces.

Nowhere to go but up

Since 2006, the
Pentagon
’s unmanned aircraft operations increased from about 165,000 hours to more than 550,000 now, with the annual budget allotment for such systems growing from $1.7 billion in 2006 to $4.2 billion in 2010. At the same time, the military’s inventory of drones has gone from fewer than 3,000 to more than 6,500, a number that
Department of Defense
officials expect to grow significantly over the next five years. “The demand for this kind of capacity is insatiable,” said Wisian. “As fast as we produce crews and equipment, they’re in the fight.” He doesn’t think drones will replace manned aircraft completely, but he’s convinced that they’re the future of air power. “We’re still just figuring out this way of warfare, and it’s revolutionary,” he said. For Staff Sgt.
Nicolas Gassiott
, who served as an F-16 crew chief, the transition from fighter jets to drones didn’t come easy. “In the beginning you go from basically being a race car driver to being a Pinto mechanic,” Gassiott said. “It’s a hard pill to swallow.”

Retrained and refocused

An F-16 typically needs five or six people to change an engine, for example, but three would be too many for a Predator, which is powered by what Wisian describes as a “souped-up snowmobile engine.” Gassiott believes the Predator’s simple design is part of its genius. He can lift the nose of the aircraft with one hand. It needs a fraction of the fuel required by an F-16 and is a fraction of the cost. It can beam detailed, real-time images of the battlefield halfway around the world. And it can stay aloft for more the 20 hours, fully armed. “Basically we took like two steps back, and we took 5,000 leaps forward,” said Gassiott. “It’s a new frontier. It’s not just the newest war machine; it’s changing all of aviation history.” At Ellington, the hundreds of workers needed to maintain a fleet of F-16s have been reduced to a handful. Some of the wing’s former flight-line personnel went through retraining and now serve on Predator crews as sensor operators or mission intelligence coordinators. These days, Gassiott rattles around Ellington Airport’s near-empty hangers, patching up Predators used for demonstrations and training. He’s worked overseas, too, as part of a team that launches the drones before the pilots at ground control stations in the U.S. take over. Showing off one of the wing’s Predators on a rainy day, Gassiott patted the grey carbon-fiber frame affectionately. His colleagues had painted it according to tradition with a pilot’s call sign and crew chief’s name, in addition to the words “Houston” and “Texas Air Guard.” The Predator might not be a glamorous aircraft, but it gets the job done, Gassiott said. “This is the airframe most feared by insurgents,
al-Qaida
and the
Taliban
,” he said. “At 20,000 feet we can put a Hellfire (missile) through a standard windowpane.”

Three-member crews

At any given time, the ground control station inside a top-security building at Ellington has two Predators in the skies over Afghanistan or Iraq. Each drone is controlled by a three-member crew. Crews rotate in shifts, so they’re always fresh. “I think of it as an airborne scout and an airborne sniper,” Wisian said. “We can stay over a spot and watch for nearly a day, and that changes what you have available for the ground commanders. You can wait. You can be patient.” During Iraqi national elections in March, for example, Predators flown by crews at Ellington circled over polling sites for hours to protect voters and Iraqi security forces, Wisian said. Other times, Ellington crews watching roads in Iraq or Afghanistan have caught insurgents planting improvised explosive devices. Crews also have been involved in major firefights in Afghanistan over the past year, Wisian said. During those battles, they provided a live picture of the situation for troops on the ground, coordinated close air support by “talking” incoming fighter jets onto their targets, and delivered precision strikes using the Predator’s Hellfire missiles. Missions don’t always go smoothly. In May, a military investigation blamed “inaccurate and unprofessional” reporting by Predator operators at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada for a missile strike that killed 23 Afghan civilians. The incident demonstrated the risks of drone warfare.

‘It’s the real thing’

Wisian said there are multiple people who must sign off before a Predator opens fire, and they tend to err on the side of caution. He’s seen crews wave off a target because they feared hitting bystanders. “There’s very strong procedures that are followed to avoid just that kind of thing,” he said. “There’s no doubt we are doing the best job in history of minimizing civilian casualties. This is a ‘hearts and minds’ war.” Predator crew members say they understand the gravity of their work situation. “It’s definitely not a video game,” said Maj. Robert Farmer, a pilot. “It’s the real thing. And the things that we do are keeping Americans safe and playing a large role in the global war on terror, so I take it seriously.” It can be hard not to let the stress of the job follow you home. “Before, when you deployed, you really had to think about it every 18 months,” Stiles said. “Now we’re always in combat.”

Mission takes priority

Stiles uses his commute to get in the right head space. On the drive to work, he tunes his radio to R&B and reviews mission scenarios. “I just try to flip the switch,” he said. “Like today, my child is sick. I can’t dwell on that because I might miss something during the mission.” Family members know that when Predator crews are on duty, they can’t take phone calls to remind them to pick up the kids or grab a carton of milk. “When I was in a F-16, there was no way my wife would call me,” Stiles said. “So we try to keep that same mindset.” One phone call did get through to Stiles, however. In May of last year, his wife called. She was in labor with their first child. Another pilot took over so Stiles could go to the hospital. “I flew a combat mission overseas and saw my daughter born, all within a couple of hours,” Stiles said. “So that was pretty neat.”
lindsay.wise@chron.com